There has been a flurry of activity across my Facebook page recently about the modern trade in medieval manuscripts, and about the
complex and troubling issue of the dissection of old books, in part due to this recent New Yorker blog post.
This a subject I
have a deep and powerful interest in, as a scholar of the middle ages, as a
collector of medieval manuscripts and fragments, and as an occasional dealer in
medieval fragments.
While I don’t think I can offer any concrete solution to the
problems and difficulties of the trade in fragments, I hope in this post to at least
outline some of the practical dimensions of the issues, problems, and questions,
as I see them. And because my interest is inevitably in the real, I will try to
illuminate my points, where I can, with specific and concrete examples.
The
problem, in the plainest terms, is that some business-people have engaged in
dismembering old books, because the monetary value of the resulting fragments
exceeds the monetary value of the un-dismembered books. For these business-people,
it is a business decision, and since we live in a capitalistic culture, the
trade is likely to continue, so long as the value of the parts is greater than
the value of the whole.
Many academics, and others, believe a different
calculation of value should apply, where the continuing integrity of the books
or fragments should be valued more highly than their fragmentation.
One simple
solution to the problem of dismembered books, of course, would be to intervene
in the market in such a way as to ensure that the current monetary-value-hierarchy
is reversed: to purchase whole books or large fragments at prices that make
cutting them apart or otherwise separating them unattractive to sellers. But
speaking only for myself, I don’t have that kind of money.
But let me
consider an actual example here. The least I ever paid for a medieval
manuscript leaf was $9.99 for two: two calendar leaves from a fifteenth-century
Book of Hours, a penny less than five dollars apiece. I bought a third leaf
from the same calendar for another $9.99. With shipping, all three came to my
door for less than thirty dollars.
I’ve paid more, I can admit, for some
twentieth-century mass-market paperbacks (and perhaps I should point out the
retail or cover price of the books I’ve written is a good bit higher as well).
And some may feel that even a first edition of Jim Thompson’s The Grifters should not be worth more
than a medieval manuscript page, but then some might say that the Bay Psalm
Book (14.2 million) should not be worth as much as the Stonyhurst (Cuthbert)
Gospels (roughly 14.3 million). Or that Action
Comics No. 1 should not be worth over a million dollars, though it is
certain that far fewer copies of Action
Comics No. 1 survive than do medieval Books of Hours. Monetary value is a strange
and tricky thing.
According
to the legal definition, the $9.99 I paid for those two leaves was a fair
market price: a price that a buyer and seller could, and did, agree upon. I
purchased those leaves from a seller who frequently offers for sale individual
leaves from manuscripts or early printed books; I do not know what has become
of the rest of the calendar or the rest of the book, though the price I paid,
as I hope all will agree, was not high enough to justify the breaking up of the
book, and it may well have happened in this case long ago: at this point in
time, who can say for sure? But I do know that for the price I paid, another
buyer could have bought these three leaves, and then sold them on separately for a
higher total price. But I bought them, and for as long as I own them, these
three leaves will remain together.
Say what you will about the person who
pulled these three leaves apart (or the seller, who offered them in two lots,
rather than one), but I will still feel that I have done these leaves a
positive good by keeping them together while I can. And since I was the only
bidder on these leaves, which were sold in an online auction, if I had not
bought them, they might have been offered later for even less, and sold to
someone with less desire to keep them together. I valued them too highly to let
that happen.
And yet I
hesitate to tell this story, because I know many people
who say that participating in this market encourages the breaking up of old
books.
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| 1949 printed nautical tables |
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The Recycling of Books
It is often noted in discussions of these issues that the
recycling of books for their material value is as old as books are: binding
fragments survive that were first recycled over a thousand years ago. Examples
from my own small collection include printed books from the sixteenth century to the twentieth that have been bound in manuscript
fragments: I haven’t yet been able
to afford an incunabula example. And let me say that clearly: the newest book I
own that is bound in a manuscript leaf was printed in 1949, and its binding is
not a conscious or ironic echoing of an earlier style of binding, but an honest
example of the tradition itself. But bookbindings are not the only uses to
which old manuscripts have been put.
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| Lampshade and Fragments |
To the left, for
example, is a lampshade made from manuscript leaves. The seller from whom I
purchased this item said he found it in a dumpster behind a Beacon Hill mansion
in Boston: of course, I have no idea whether this claim is true or not. But to
me it looks like a hand-made item from the nineteenth or early twentieth
century.
While William Morris, Elbert Hubbard, and the Arts and Crafts movement were busy
printing books in a kind of neo-Gothic mode, actual medieval manuscripts were,
in this artifact’s case, used to provide an appealingly soft Gothic glow as
light shone through the leaves.
Unfortunately, the heat from the gas or electric light providing that
glow eventually caused the leaves to shrink, blacken, and fall apart. And it is
still falling apart, though (for the moment at least), I am inclined to leave
it just as it is: the story it tells is all the more poignant as it sits. And,
of course, many of these fragmentary leaves would break further if I tried to
take the thing apart.
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| 2 bifolia and a single leaf; initials and one margin excised |
These five Book of Hours leaves, too, were probably mutilated in the nineteenth century: the
initial KL at the head of each calendar leaf was cut out, presumably, by someone who
valued them as tiny works of art, and an initial and margin were excised from one text page.
Again, one cannot be certain, but it seems
likely these initials were cut out and pasted into a Victorian scrapbook, as was
certainly done at the time. I’ve handled enough Victorian scrapbooks to
know that they were often made of the cheapest, most acidic paper available,
and they are often extremely fragile as well as ephemeral. The initials from these
leaves may survive somewhere, but it seems more likely to me that they have
been destroyed or discarded, rather than lost: though once the colored letters were valued
more highly than the leaves they were cut from, it is possible that these leaves—once
dismissed as of less value than the cuttings taken from them—have ended up
surviving longer.
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| Sewing guards: longest dimension about 10 inches |
A final
example, pictured above, probably dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century and brings us back to bindings. These tiny
fragments of manuscript were used as sewing guards: thin strips used, one to a
gathering, in the binding of an old book. Now they are so very small as to
have very little value—depending on how we value such things.
An interest in the materiality of
texts has brought some new scholarly attention to such binding (and other) fragments,
and they provide fascinating evidence across time of the changing values of
books, texts, and the materials they are made from.
It is crucially important,
I think, to recognize that we also live at a moment where old books like
medieval manuscripts are being actively recycled, and at least we can admit
that the breaking of books today may do them less harm than to use them for
lamp-panels, sewing guards, or scrapbook cuttings. I say that not to condone
the breaking up of old books, but to help remember the practice in its
historical context.
The contemporary purpose to which individual leaves are being
put most often is probably to serve as visible, and ownable, works of art. The
case of medieval Latin manuscript leaves makes it most clear: such leaves are
purchased for display, often enough, by those who may be unable to read their
script or language, and the leaves are cherished for their age and their
beauty. Again, I
think it is important to acknowledge that these leaves are, in fact, often being
cherished by their final (by which I mean current) owners: these leaves are a
testament to how very highly even the simplest and most ubiquitous medieval
textual artifacts are valued—and valued highly—inside and outside the academy.
I
say this not to celebrate the dispersal of books and leaves, but to acknowledge
that the interest we rightly show towards the recycling of old books in the
middle ages or the Renaissance or the nineteenth century is worth also
directing towards our own times and places. To do so may remind us (as
academics) not to indiscriminately demonize all the players in the market for
manuscript leaves: if their buyers cherish the separate leaves for reasons
different from how academics would cherish the whole books, a love and respect
for medieval manuscripts lies on both sides of that divide.
I
am powerfully and distressingly struck by the similarity of this dynamic to the
difficult problem of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s use of ancient pots as
“readymade” materials upon which or through which his own art can take place.
His destruction or painting over of old pots has generated a wide range of
responses, from numerous international gallery installations to accusations
that it amounts to “cultural vandalism, pure and simple”.
Or perhaps we should consider instead the
numerous artists who carve, reshape, and or otherwise alter (printed) books for
their artistic ends. For a spectrum of such book arts, please perform a simple Google
search on “art made from old books” or glance at some of the following sites,
which gather a variety of examples, such as here or here. Or indeed, see this Huffington Post slideshow and article.
We obviously live at a moment when (old) books are valued
for many purposes. Perhaps a coherent or consistent response to such widely
divergent acts and practices is impossible, but I must admit to having
difficulty celebrating the destruction or mutilation of printed books for
artistic ends and simultaneously condemning the breaking up of manuscripts for
collectors’ ends. I am simply not certain that artists’ purposes must
necessarily be valued more highly, or that the integrity of printed books does
not deserve as much of our concern as the integrity of manuscripts. Emotions
run high on all these issues, of course.
Critics of
Ai Weiwei reasonably point to his destruction of older artifacts as a failure
of appropriate stewardship of the survivals from the past. Ai Weiwei’s
partisans, alternatively, would doubtless point out that the act of stewardship
itself always also remakes old artifacts (even, often enough, via conservation)
and it almost always alters their material contexts irrevocably, even while original
contexts may be recorded to the best of the stewards’ ability.
Again, the two
positions are not far removed, except for an argument about what kind of
stewardship is appropriate, what kind of intervention and transformation is
allowable and why. But I’ve been in the game long enough to recognize that each
side in such debates holds its own position to be the better one, the more
morally or politically or academically or economically relevant one, the more
valuable one.
Stewardship
At the end of the day, I, like many medievalists, am powerfully
opposed to the destruction or dissociation of manuscripts (or other books) or
the separation of fragments that belong together, and in my own
practice (and business) I am committed not to engage in either. And I am, of course, always
happy to come across others who share my opinions.
But I am in the manuscript
market, and I sometimes see that books are, indeed, being broken up, separated,
sold apart. I very much worry that if I watch it happen and do nothing, or
worse yet, turn away and do nothing, I contribute to the very practice that
appalls me. When I was a teacher of medieval literature, I tried to encourage a
love and reverence for the survivals of the medieval past: in that sense, I
have always been implicated in the market for fragments. So for me, I have
always tried to think as clearly and as carefully as I can about what I can do,
given that my implication is, and has always been, unavoidable.
One concern
I have, of course, lays not with the present, but with the future of scattered
fragments and leaves, whether from books broken yesterday or five centuries ago.
Had I not bought my three $9.99 calendar leaves, there is every chance they
might have been split up from one another, as well as separated from their
original context. Worse, they might have been purchased by someone who felt
they were worth $9.99, and their future shaped or determined by a level of care
and stewardship appropriate to ten-dollar items.
Whether I am a fan of the
market in manuscript leaves or not, one function of a collection is to allow a
mass of items to gain a value by association that individual items might not
have on their own. Because I have a collection, rather than a single leaf, I
have more options for its future, whether I dispose of the collection myself or
try to secure a home for it after my death. And because I am (at least a
little) knowledgeable about the material and about the market, my range of
action and options is even greater. Collecting can be a kind of stewardship
that does good.
And let me
be clear: as a collector, the last thing that one part of me wants is for there
to be more collectors out there, their competition raising the prices on things
I treasure. But my better side hopes for all fragments to be valued and subject
to a stewardship that ensures their future.
Conclusions
So, in the end, I think there are good reasons for being in
the manuscript market, even if others in that market act in ways that I
personally am not happy about, and even if others have equally valid reasons for
staying out of it. One thing I think I can do is to try to act ethically, as I
see it, and to communicate my vision to others. It is in this spirit that I
offer the following ideas.
- Though I expect to continue to buy and occasionally sell
books, manuscripts, and fragments, I commit to maintaining them, as much as I can,
in a state of integrity. This may involve conservation, to prevent or delay
further damage, or it may simply take the form of benign neglect, through the
principle of “do no harm.” But I will not break up books, manuscripts, or
fragments that belong together. And I will say this clearly when I offer a
manuscript book or fragment for sale.
- Destruction and disintegration are thermodynamically
inevitable. All survivals from the past are fragments of the whole that once
existed, and their very survival is subject to constant transformation. To the
degree that the passage through time itself leads to transformation, I will
recognize that stewardship and transformation need to remain in dialogue,
rather than necessarily being in opposition.
- Our cultural heritage belongs to us all, and we all
should engage actively in its stewardship; we are all of us responsible for its
future. I will commit to acknowledging that there may be others whose idea of
stewardship or ownership of our common cultural heritage differs from my
own. These other people are my
co-stewards (as I am their co-steward), and they may deserve my respect, if not
my agreement.
- Whenever possible, I will practice a “value added” form
of stewardship. I will strive to use my own knowledge and understanding of the
past, and my belief in the value of maintaining the integrity of all old
artifacts, to contribute to the maintenance of their integrity into the future.
At times, this has taken the form of “rescue buying,” in which I have tried to
gather together or keep together items that another seller has been willing to
split up. My knowledge can be the tool with which I add sufficient value to such
fragments that otherwise might be separated to try to ensure their future
integrity.
On a final, personal note, I derive a real joy from my role
in the ongoing stewardship of old books and manuscripts, whether that role
takes the form of scholarship, ownership, or commerce.
For me at least, I
believe my ownership of manuscripts makes me more than ever committed to their
stewardship, in both general and specific terms. Indeed, it would make me sad
to think that such items of medieval material culture could only be owned by institutions
and by the wealthy: the fact that regular folks can own these items gives all
of us regular folks a stake in these matters that is more than merely
intellectual and historical. For now at least, the trade in manuscripts and
fragments has all the benefits and hazards of democratic capitalism.
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| 2 fragments of one leaf, purchased from different sellers |
And so I
have been greatly delighted, on two or three remarkable and unbelievable occasions,
to bring fragments once widely separated back together again: these fragments I
have shored against my—and our—ruins.
It is good work to do. They will remain
together while I have them in my care, and I believe it makes a difference for
me to try to bring and to keep them together. More often, I've purchased
multi-page fragments that another person might have separated, and I’ve kept
them together.
Even if my failures in this area should be as spectacular as my
successes, I have only achieved the successes by being willing to try.
